


Be Good to Yourself

by sparrowshellcat



Series: The Journey Series [2]
Category: Supernatural, Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Gen, Journey Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-28
Updated: 2012-02-28
Packaged: 2017-10-31 21:02:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/348336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshellcat/pseuds/sparrowshellcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam doesn't understand the relationship that Dean has with the Impala. But Dean knows something his brother doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Good to Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> A very short dip into the Journey Series, to try and get myself in the mood to write the next story in the series. 
> 
> Supernatural and Transformers, naturally, are not owned by me, and are used without permission and without any commercial profit.
> 
> \---
> 
> For more fic and art, you can follow me on Tumblr! [sparrowshellcat](http://sparrowshellcat.tumblr.com)

Sam didn't understand his brother's devotion to the family car.

He didn't know why Dean was so obsessed with keeping it clean, why he was so angry when his brother made fun of the scratchy old tape deck, why he had insisted on rebuilding it after the Impala was essentially destroyed by the transport truck. Sam understood that it was part of their lives, that it had played a large role in everything they'd done, but it was just a _car_. They could always get new cars.

Sometimes, Sam thought that his brother loved the Impala more than he did  _him_ , and sometimes he joked that their car was the older sister they never had. 

But Sam didn't know about the car, not really.

John hadn't known, and Sam didn't know now, that when Dean was alone with the car, the engine would roar even when it wasn't turned on, that the headlights would blink at him when he sat in the dark, that sometimes, when Dean was very quiet, the car would actually  _move_ . More than once, when he had curled up in the back seat of the car to go to sleep, the radio would turn on without cause, and soft music would lull him to sleep. He didn't know why the car seemed to never indicate that it could do this to anyone else, but as far as Dean was convinced, the Impala was alive.

So when the car had been hit by a transport truck and crunched into scrap metal, and Sam had said that they should just get a new one, it was like his brother had stabbed him. The Impala was as alive as they were – and they'd spent time in a hospital, to get better.

Dean was just going to have to be the Impala's doctor.

He took her down to the bare bones, removing all of the panels and winching the engine out so that it could be rebuilt as well, and threw himself into the repair of their sister – because maybe Sam was right, the Impala should be called their sister – with everything he had. He knew that he was avoiding thinking about his father's death and what his father had done by working on the car instead of his relationship with his brother, but he didn't care, dammit, at least he was  _doing_ something instead of trying to just wallow in his feelings. Sam, naturally, didn't want to just  _let_ Dean throw himself into the Impala instead of dealing with things, and tried to provoke him.

While on one hand, Dean was sort of proud of himself for not having punched his brother for being such an asshole, he really wished he hadn't taken a crow bar to the Impala's trunk.

It was late, the sun just slipping the last of the way under the horizon, just the edges of the sky painted pink purple gold with watercolour tones, the rest of the sky a deep blue so dark it was nearly black, scattered all over with diamond lights of stars. Dean was alone, out here. Technically. Only, as far as he was convinced, he  _wasn't_ alone, he was curled up beside the engine block of the Impala, which he had resting on a wooden pallet, cheek pressed against one of the headers, eyes closed. 

A beer bottle dangled in his fingers, half drunk, mostly forgotten about. 

The engine he was curled up to was warm. He told himself, logically, that it must have caught the warmth of the late summer sun and kept the metal warm, now. Logic didn't really seem to come into this, now, though, because the metal of the engine shouldn't have been  _this_ warm, it just didn't make sense. 

“Hey, Impala.” He murmured, eyes still shut. “I just... I wanna say I’m sorry. For everything. You got all bashed in because of our fight with the yellow eyed son of a bitch that killed mom, and that's not fair. Who asked you to get dragged into this damn thing? We just sort of hauled you into it.”

The engine block he was leaning on rumbled slightly, as though the pistons had just run through a cycle.

Dean laughed softly, and finally lifted his bottle to sip at his beer. “You know, if you did that with Sammy, he would panic and freak out, you know that? He doesn't get it. He doesn't know you're... you're not just a car. He doesn't know you're alive.”

Some of the body panel pieces he'd set aside to be buffed out shifted, metal clinking slightly against each other. 

“Yeah, I know, babe,” he murmured, and reached up to brush some of the dirt and oil off the top of the engine block, knowing that he had grease smeared on his cheek from where he'd been leaning, and not really caring. If you asked him, engine grease from Impala and lipstick from a woman were both sort of badges of honour that should be worn on the skin, proudly. “Sammy's loss. Because you, Impala, are a _wonderful_ car.”

The lights on the radio flickered slightly inside the car, and he glanced over at it, genuinely surprised, for once. There was no battery attached to the car right now, there was nothing that could power the car. 

But then, the engine probably shouldn't be rumbling and running without being hooked up to fuel, either.

With a sort crackle of sound, the radio sparked to life, the music slightly crackly, as though the radio couldn't find the settings of the channel, properly, and music started playing, softly, “ _Shoulder to shoulder, push and shove, I’m hangin' up my boxin' gloves, I’m ready for a long vacation..._ ”

Dean laughed, and patted the engine block. “Hey... I’m gonna be good to you, babe. We'll get you all fixed up, get you all repaired... you'll be good as new in no time. Better than new. You're going to be perfect again, Impala, sweetheart.”

The engine rumbled again, quietly, like reassurance. 

He hesitated. Maybe he should go to bed, get some rest before he started focusing on fixing up Impala, but... no.  _No_ , he needed to fix her, needed to get her back into one piece. He needed to, now. Maybe she needed a vacation, but rebuilding her should take care of that. So he took another deep swig of his beer, and set the bottle aside before flicking on the floodlights that Bobby kept out here in the garage, just in case, and gathered up some of his tools, and got to work. The Impala kept playing the radio, pouring music out around him, so that the notes wove around him like an embrace. Dean smiled softly, and threw himself into the repair of his baby. His sister, if you will.

If only his relationship with his brother could be fixed quite so easily. 

 


End file.
